There is no escaping the birthday post

[ephemeralflow]

Who: Timekeeper and whoever is enough of a snoop!
What: What's in the box, TK?
When: October 23rd, so after the mansion (but before her clock tower is built)
Where: At or around the inn
Warnings: Will update if needed but this is probably just going to be silly/cute

[Well it started as a normal day, or normal enough of one when everyone is still in the midst of weeding out any remaining doppelgangers. Timekeeper has also been slightly more on edge than usual, bothering the few people she cares about more frequently and keeping as sharp an eye as she can out. Still, she's yet to do any of that this morning, and it's when she's on her way back from getting breakfast at the cafe that she's all but ambushed by Ydalir.

Who cheerfully hands her a little boxed cake and wishes her happy birthday.

Timekeeper won't admit later that she had to stand there and blink for a moment, but she did. Oh, it is today, isn't it. Well. Hmm. That's something she hasn't thought about in probably the equivalent of centuries!

So, after that entirely too awkward an encounter for her tastes, she attempts to slip quietly back to her inn room with the box. It's not like she's had reason to tell anyone else her bakeday, after all, and surely it's not something anyone would care to celebrate anyway.

Unfortunately, she's not very good at stealth checks and someone could have totally seen Ydalir stop her.]

Comments

[ephemeralflow]

[Cake? What cake? This is an interesting discussion now, no brain space to worry about anything else! The box she's holding is irrelevant and at least partly forgotten.]

Oh, I gave up trying to do that a long time ago! Relatively speaking, of course. It's much too tedious for nothing more than a statistic without bearing. Not to mention, tracking timelines other than my own is far more fascinating.

[But then her smile turns sly, eye narrowing in mischief.]

Ah, but you and yours were trapped in a time loop, were you not? Regardless of whether you remember it, does that not mean you are also in a similar circumstance? Or would you personally not count it?

[alphacraft]

An interesting question.

I wouldn't count it on my own timeline because it isn't something I experienced myself. But it does bear questioning: what happened to the timelines that were left behind? Do they continue to exist? Does it even matter, whether they do or not?

Our experiences are what make us who we are, so it can't be said that I'm the same person as any other Odile with experiences different from my own.

[ She has, perhaps, thought about this more than might be normal. ]

[ephemeralflow]

[Good! That's exactly the kind of thought that makes talking about it interesting!]

Oho, fair enough, and fair questions besides! Well then, let me tell you something about time loops...

[She leans back, a glimmer in her eye as she taps her chin.]

Most time loops are not technically loops - they are spirals. Each repetition bears the weight of the one before it, and is shaped by it, even if the differences aren't noticeable by mortal eyes. Of course, I would have to observe your timeline directly to see whether this is the case for the one you were in, or if it is indeed a closed loop producing isolated timeline splinters, but it is still interesting to wonder how much of that weight you might unconsciously bear, is it not?

[alphacraft]

[ It's habit at this point that makes Odile frown when Timekeeper says she's going to tell her something. At least this information isn't overly personal, or phrased to be upsetting in some way.

She considers it. That raises several more questions, but she asks the most important one first. ]

What are the practical ramifications?

[ At the end of the day, curiosity-driven though she may be, she is a pragmatist. ]

drags myself out of the brain funk for a minute

[ephemeralflow]

[Timekeeper merely gives a casual shrug, as if it's the least consequential thing in the world.]

Practically? There's not terribly much of a difference, to the average cookie. With a spiral, you may experience occasional deja vu or dreams that pull from the memory fragments of other iterations of the loop, but there is ultimately only one you who experienced it in its entirety. With a true loop, everything is exactly as if you only experienced the final loop - but there are other yous from the other loops out there in the temporal fabric, trapped in doomed timelines. All of that really only matters if you plan to go gallivanting off into time rifts to tinker with your own timeline, however!

[She would know. Her lips quirk into a smirk.]

Ah, and that's assuming the most likely situations, without accounting for anomalies or exceptional circumstances, of course.

[alphacraft]

[ She needs a minute to think about that from various angles. The idea of tinkering with the timeline, while a tempting thought, doesn't pose much of a threat that she can see. Doomed timelines, though, with doomed versions of all of them... that's the kind of thing that someone like Isabeau or Siffrin might fixate on.

Maybe if she was a better person she might worry about it too. But ultimately, this is the only reality she has to work with. These versions of her team are the ones she's responsible for. ]

...Have you ever spoken to Siffrin about this?

[ephemeralflow]

No. He was not terribly receptive the last time I tried to speak to him about time.

[She kind of freaked him out, in other words. Understandably. And they haven't exactly spoken much since. Loop is more interesting anyway!

Timekeeper does seem to consider for a moment, tapping her chin.]

Although Loop tells me he is not fond of croissants, so perhaps that is only natural! [That was a joke. You can tell because her smile widens! Like every other expression she ever has.] Are you saying that you think I should?

[alphacraft]

No, I can't imagine he was...

[ She did try though.

The croissant bit is getting filed away with all the other cookie things she doesn't want to think about too hard. Maybe she'll ask Loop about it one day; they seem to be on... dying-together terms? ]

No, I think you should avoid it. It's not very practical information, and it likely falls under the "antagonizing" category.

[ Which as we all know means that Odile would gladly go to war over it. ]

[ephemeralflow]

Oh! Hmm.

[Timekeeper seems genuinely surprised by this assessment, taking a moment to consider, tapping her fingers against the cake box.]

I would not consider it impractical myself, but of course I would normally be editing time nonstop. If you think it so, I will not bring it up - [She won't because she doesn't want to make an enemy of Odile right now, in other words] - but I did not expect "antagonizing."

[It follows, though. She's upset Siffrin before when only trying to explain something she thought would be interesting and useful to know. Are time loops really so rough on normal people? She's seen agents get stuck before and not come out that worse for wear, but... of course, she cannot simply go and see the extent of this particular loop for herself.

And maybe she shouldn't even care. Normally, she might not, only wanting to pick at their story like a scab on a wound to satisfy her own curiosity. But she's gotten herself wedged into an awkward place, here, actually having started to build a... whatever it is they have going on with Loop. And Loop cares about Siffrin, and Odile cares about them all, and...

Sigh.]

Well, you certainly know them well, do you not? I do wish to see your timelines someday, but if there is anything particularly interesting to discover, perhaps it is you I should tell first.

[alphacraft]

[ She just watches Timekeeper for a moment, considering. She'd thought maybe the woman said such things just to get a reaction, looking for open wounds to pick at. Was she wrong? ...Debatable. ]

Of all of us, I'm probably the most interested in the mechanics of time loops anyway. But no, it isn't practical knowledge. None of us have the ability to make 'edits', nor do we want to. We humans are stuck with the timeline we have, mostly.